Sides: honey-glazed carrots, fried okra, butter beans, macaroni & cheese
Desserts: chocolate icebox pie, layered lemon cake, peach cobbler
Four
Rose Carrigan woke to the sound of singing. It was far off, but it was insistent. Deep. Male. Perky.
She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head, then shoved it away when she realized the voice still trickled through the layers of cotton and down. Exasperated, she sat up, rubbed her face, and threw back the blanket. The tile floor was cool on her bare feet, and she was glad she hadn’t put down carpet like so many of the other residents had done in their own cottages. Carpet harbored all manner of untidy organisms she’d rather not have camped out around her toes. Hard tile floor suited her just fine.
Before she yanked open the French doors of her second-floor balcony, she spotted Coach’s red hat bouncing on the other side of the tall grass alongside the water. All she could see of him was his hat, but it moved swiftly back and forth, telling her he was in his canoe again, rowing. He continued to warble, his voice winding its way inside her bedroom even though the windows were firmly closed.
She wrinkled her nose and exhaled. He was so doggone cheerful it sometimes made her stomach ache. The man was known to burst into song at any given moment, as if he couldn’t bear to keep his happiness—his exuberance at nothing more than plain old life—to himself. Then he had the gall to try to spread it around.
She turned for the stairs, grabbing her cotton robe off the end of the bed on the way. Downstairs she tightened the belt around her middle before opening the back door and tromping out onto the damp grass. At the water’s edge, she waited for Coach to round the bend.
“Good morning, Rose,” he huffed when he saw her, his cheeks pink with exertion. “You’re up bright and early today.”
She crossed her arms and tried not to look at his chest, bare as the day was long. “I am up early, Coach Beaumont. Any idea why?”
He paused in his rowing and let the canoe coast for a moment before breaking into a grin. “I don’t have the foggiest. Lady problems?”
She tightened her mouth. “Is there any reason you are outside my bedroom window singing this early in the morning?”
“Rose, I am not outside your bedroom window.” He spread his arms toward the bay, smooth and silver as a mirror. “I’m out here enjoying the beginning of a brand-new day in the most beautiful spot on God’s blue earth.” He shook his head. “I can’t help it if your bedroom window just happens to be within earshot of my enjoyment of the morning.”
“Just . . . try to enjoy yourself a little quieter. I’m going back to sleep.” She started back for her house, then whirled around again. He was still watching her. “What’s that song you’re singing, anyway? It sounds teenagery.”
“It’s John Mellencamp, sugar. And he’s not teenagery—he’s one for the ages.” Coach picked up his oars and resumed rowing. “‘It’s a lonely ol’ night,’” he sang, his voice nicer than she cared to admit. “‘Can I put my arms around you?’”
She sighed and turned again, stepping firmly through the grass, wishing it were something harder so she could emphasize her displeasure with the sound of stomping feet. Silly old man. Making her feel like a squirmy teenager. Rose Carrigan wasn’t about to let anyone put their arms around her, and she surely did not allow herself to feel ruffled by a man who went by the name Coach and wore flip-flops every day but Christmas, and some years, even then.
She was in charge of this place. The keeper of the keys, as it were. For the moment at least. The unexpected message in her inbox a few days ago had gone a long way toward redirecting the way she saw her future.
But until she made a decision, she was the village owner.
Back inside her spotless kitchen, she flipped on her four-cup Mr. Coffee and grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil. If she wanted to add another rule to the Safe Harbor Village Handbook, she could certainly do so. While coffee dripped into the glass carafe, Rose stood at her counter and wrote a note in her careful penmanship.
No loud noise—including singing—before 7 a.m.
“There.” She ripped out the page, folded it once, and slid it into an envelope. She’d stick it in Shirley Ferrill’s mailbox after breakfast.
When the coffeepot stopped dripping, she poured a cup and sat down at her kitchen table. It wasn’t until she saw Coach rowing back toward shore that she remembered she’d meant to go back to sleep.
She sighed and sipped her coffee, but its heat burned her tongue. She set the mug down with a thud and a bit sloshed over the edge. As she wiped up the mess with a dish towel, she watched Coach out the window and huffed.
Twenty minutes into the day and he’d already ruined it.
* * *
After her too-early start, Rose felt off. Not her usual self. Her body felt tired, though her mind was a hive of activity. She tried to settle herself with a cup of lemon tea and a chapter of an old Anne Rivers Siddons novel she’d picked up secondhand at Beach Reads, and when that didn’t work, she found herself in the same place she always ended up when she felt out of sorts—her rose garden.
She knew it bordered on cheeky to have a rose garden when one’s name was Rose, but the bushes were planted for her as a gift, and Rose had come to accept her prickly relationship with them. They were as much a part of her life as her elevated blood pressure and newly overactive bladder. Many times she’d considered asking Rawlins to pull them out and plant something simple in their place. Some low-maintenance shrubbery—Mexican sage maybe, or plumbago. Something that wasn’t so needy. But each time, she reconsidered, then picked up her pruning shears or her bottle of fungicide, and slipped on her gardening gloves instead.
Sometimes she thought of them as her thinking gloves, because often as soon as she pulled them on and took her place in the flower beds, her mind settled, discarding unnecessary worries and elevating those that needed her attention. And today what needed her attention, what was causing her mind to vibrate on overdrive, was that email.
Rose, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I can only hope the news I have to share with you will be of the welcome variety. We’ve finally been offered a chance to sell Safe Harbor Village, and for a pretty penny too. You and I would both be set, and you could do whatever you like—stay in the village under the new ownership or take your money and move elsewhere. The world is your oyster.
Let me know your thoughts.
Terry
She’d read the email so many times she could recite it word for word, though she hadn’t spoken of it to a single soul in the village. No need to start a panic when she hadn’t decided what to do.
But somewhere down deep, underneath everything else piled on top that covered up truth and honesty, Rose knew what she wanted her answer to be. She wanted to say yes to Terry. She had nowhere else to go, but looking back over her life, she never could have imagined she’d be alone at nearly seventy years old and in charge of a bunch of people just as old as she was. This was where life had placed her, but she never thought she’d stay as long as she had.
She was reaching down to check a stem for signs of the black spot fungus that arrived each humid summer, when she heard rapid footsteps on the street. She turned to see Peter and Ida Gold fast-walking toward her, their slim hips swiveling in tandem, arms pumping, sweatbands around their foreheads as if it were already ninety degrees out.